The increased popularity of fast food establishments, coupled with the popularity for consumption of food on-the-go has led to the need for more convenient carrying of condiments and food.
Billions of disposable beverage containers are used every year. Often those containers are part of a larger meal, and current technology dictates placing a lid on the beverage container, and packing the food and condiments in a separate and detached containers. This may be satisfactory for a consumer seated at a table. However, when the consumer must eat on-the-go, use of the current technology is problematic. Consider, for example, a consumer that is drinking the beverage and would like to access a French fry and ketchup. The consumer must set aside a beverage, and then use one hand to hold the bag and the other hand to access the ketchup packet, then set aside the bag and use both hands to open the packet, and finally free up one hand to access the fry and dip it into the packet. As shown in this example, current technology does not allow for convenient on-the-go eating.
Some prior art references have attempted to address these problems. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,722,558 discloses a container lid with a single reservoir that is configured to proceed downward from the top horizontal plane that is formed by the rim of the beverage container. The condiment reservoir projects downward into the floating ice or cold beverage that is contained within the beverage container such that the condiment within the downward reservoir becomes slightly chilled. The structure disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,722,558 does not extend upwardly away from the plane defined by the rim. This has several shortcomings. First, since the disclosure only addresses a reservoir that extends downwardly into the beverage container, if the reservoir was to be substantially large or deep the liquid capacity of the beverage container would be adversely decreased because of fluid displacement. Second, the low position of the reservoir makes it difficult and messy to access. If, for example, a user were to fill the reservoir with ketchup, dipping into the reservoir would most likely cause the ketchup to spill onto the straw. Third, the low position of the reservoir interferes with the straw location and placement. For example as shown in FIG. 2A, when a straw is inserted it is likely that the bottom of the straw could not access the entire bottom surface of the beverage container. While this may be surmountable when the beverage is thin (like water), when the beverage is thick (like a milkshake) the user must be able to manipulate the straw along the entire bottom surface to extract all of the beverage. And again, as the size and/or depth of the reservoir increases, the more the reservoir will interfere with the straw location and placement.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,209,748 has some of the same shortcomings. In several embodiments, the outer ring that attaches to the beverage container rim has a perforated pour tab that can be lifted such that a user sip the beverage through the pour tab. This pour tab, however, substantially compromises the structural integrity of the lid rendering it structurally unable to support a large food container. In another embodiment, a pour hole is disclosed but that hole is at the same elevation as the reservoirs, again interfering with the straw location and placement.
What is therefore needed is a lid that overcomes these shortcomings, and fosters convenient on-the-go eating.